I quite like electricity but that doesn't stop me from recognizing that the methods that have been used to generate it have, for the most part, been dirty, wasteful and destructive, especially when one takes into account the extraction and distribution of the fossil fuels that power so many of our plants.
Hydroelectric power with its flooding of thousands of square miles of land, displacement of (mostly) indigenous populations and mercury poisoning of entire ecosystems is no longer viable. Whatever can we do? Well, we can use less electricity. And we can exploit a few things that nature gives us for free, the harvesting of which would be much more benign than the above sources. I am of course talking about solar and wind power. And not just large centralized power generation systems. I am talking small wind generators on individual houses. For about twenty thousand dollars or less a wind turbine about the size of a beer keg can be put on a rooftop. It's hooked into the grid via regulator so that if you're not around the house on a windy day your generator actually feeds into the grid and you get a credit for that. If you happen to be home using electricity on a calm day your house simply taps into the grid and you're charged accordingly. On windy days that you're home using power you get free electricity! The technology already exists and I have no idea why its use is not widespread. Why wouldn't every single new house not have this? With houses starting at around three or four hundred thousand around here the cost amortized over twenty five years is about zero and the savings in electricity would more than offset the cost. And beyond small turbines I have no idea why we don't have more huge wind farms to power our cities. Sure, we would still need our old generating systems (or some of them) but these things would take a lot of the strain off our current systems and lower our dependence on fossil fuels. Why is replacement of dirty power systems with cleaner ones so radical? Seems to be simple common sense to me... cheers, tree hugger pinko frank ;-) "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof." -- Christopher Hitchens --- Original Message --- From: "Daniel J. Matyola" <[email protected]> Sent: August 12, 2012 8/12/12 To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <[email protected]> Subject: Re: Peso: The White Towers Frank, you don't like nuclear energy, you don't like coal, I'm sure you don't like frakking, or oil pipelines. I guess you don't like electricity either. Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 12:12 PM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote: > Ah, well, my comment in the previous post about those things being "scary" > was because I thought it was a nuclear plant. > > Not that coal is ideal but if one believes the current propaganda it can > actually be quite clean these days. I think I'd prefer fossil fuel to nuclear. > > Cheers, > frank > > "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof." -- > Christopher Hitchens > > --- Original Message --- > > From: Steven Desjardins <[email protected]> > Sent: August 11, 2012 8/11/12 > To: "Pentax-Discuss Mail List" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Peso: The White Towers > > Nope. Fall River, Mass. That's a coal-fired power plant. The hot > water they were releasing into the river was harming the fish, so they > built cooling towers like aNuclear plant. It's essentially a > self-contained system. As funny as it is, those towers make the plant > a bit more green. > > On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 3:48 PM, Walter Hamler <[email protected]> wrote: >> Is that Three Mile Is, PA ? >> >> Walt >> >> On Sat, Aug 11, 2012 at 3:43 PM, Steven Desjardins <[email protected]> wrote: >>> I went to my hometown last week to visit my family. I hadn't been >>> home in about 4 years, and I while walking through the park I got a >>> good view of some new construction: >>> >>> http://drd1135.smugmug.com/Photography/pdml/i-bmxVGWm/0/XL/towers-XL.jpg >>> >>> I'm about 3 miles away. >>> >>> -- >>> Steve Desjardins >>> >>> -- >>> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >>> [email protected] >>> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >>> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >>> follow the directions. >> >> -- >> PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List >> [email protected] >> http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net >> to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and >> follow the directions. > > > > -- > Steve Desjardins > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
